FEANICS - A multi-user facility for conducting solid fuel combustion experiments on ISS

AIAA 2001-5079FEANICS - A MULTI-USER FACILITY FOR CONDUCTING SOLID FUEL COMBUSTIONEXPERIMENTS ON ISSDavid T. FrateNASA Glenn Research CenterCleveland, OhioTodd A. TofilNASA Glenn Research CenterCleveland, OhioAbstractThe Destiny Module on the International Space Station(ISS) will soon be home for the Fluids and CombustionFacility's (FCF) Combustion Integrated Rack (CIR),which is being developed at the NASA Glenn ResearchCenter in Cleveland, Ohio. The CIR will be theplatform for future microgravity combustionexperiments. A multi-user mini-facility calledFEANICS (Flow Enclosure Accommodating NovelInvestigations in Combustion of Solids) will also be•built at NASA Glenn. This mini-facility will be theprimary means for conducting solid fuel combustionexperiments in the CIR on ISS. The main focus ofmany of these solid combustion experiments will be toconduct basic and applied scientific investigations infire-safety to support NASA's BioastronauticsInitiative. The FEANICS project team will work inconjunction with the CIR project team to developupgradeable and reusable hardware to meet the sciencerequirements of current and future investigators.Currently, there are six experiments that are candidatesto use the FEANICS mini-facility. This paper willdescribe the capabilities of this mini-facility and thetype of solid combustion testing and diagnostics thatcan be performed.IntroductionThe Combustion Integrated Rack will be the primaryfacility for conducting microgravity combustionexperiments on the International Space Station. Inorder to utilize this facility most effectively, the NASAGlenn Research Center is planning on building several"mini-facilities" in order to perform combustionresearch I. The mini-facilities will consist of a piece ofhardware that is inserted into the combustion chamberin the CIR as well as any of the diagnostics andconsumables (fuels, gases, etc.) that would be necessaryto perform the required tests. The mini-facilityhardware, combined with the hardware provided by theCIR, is intended to meet the science requirements of theindividual experiments. The first of these mini-facilities will be the Multi-user Droplet CombustionApparatus (MDCA), which will be available forinvestigators to study the burning of liquid fuels in theform of droplets 2. The second mini-facility will be theFlow Enclosure Accommodating Novel Investigationsin Combustion of Solids (FEANICS). This apparatuswill provide the hardware needed to study combustionof both thick and thin solid fuels in microgravity. Thelast currently planned mini-facility is the Multi-userGaseous Fuel Apparatus (MGFA). This facility willfocus on the combustion of gaseous fuels in the CIR 3.The FEANICS mini-facility will consist of two separateCIR chamber inserts. One will be designed to studycombustion of thin fuels. The other will be designed tostudy combustion of thick fuels. The centerpiece ofboth inserts will be a flow tunnel in which thecombustion process will take place. The flow tunnelwill allow for testing at various flow velocities, inconcurrent or opposed flow, or at quiescent conditions.The tunnel will also have a filter section to clean theby-products of combustion. In order to save on gasusage, and consequently upmass and stowage volume,the inserts will utilize a gas recirculation approach inconjunction with the CIR to bleed in oxygen toreplenish the amount consumed from combustion.Hence, once gas passes through the flow tunnel and thecombustion zone, it is then filtered, dumped into theCopyright © 2001 by the American Institute ofAeronautics and Astronautics, Inc. No copyrightis asserted in the United States under Title 17,U.S. Code. The U.S. government has a royalty-freelicense to exercise all rights under the copyrightclaimed herein for Governmental Purposes. Allother rights are reserved by the copyright owner.This is a preprint or reprintof a paper intended for presentation at aconference. Because changes may be made before formalpublication, this is made available with the understanding that itwillnot be cited or reproduced without the permission of the author.American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics